Dividend in scrip and different currency

[marathon]

HSBC shares are registered in UK and scrip dividend is paid out in UK shares denominated in GBP

Any balance cash dividend is paid out in USD

The system updates either as distributed in GBP or reinvested

The reinvested option miscalculates the actual scrip and is booking on the wrong dates. Problem may be with Yahoo...???

To get this correctly booked it is actually easier to manually update otherwise need to reverse out the entries.

Problem is that a system should not rely on manual booking, instead the results should be automatic and accurate

What should be the correct way?

[Mark]

Hi marathon,

I would figure out the source of the problems.

If the date is wrong, then this date is coming from Yahoo. You can verify by looking at the quoted distribution on their site using your web browser.

Why is the reinvested amount wrong? If you are retrieving dividends from Yahoo, Yahoo reports in amount per share figures. This means that you need to have the correct number of shares owned on the distribution date, for it to calculate a correct amount. See how many shares you owned on that date, and see what Yahoo is reporting for distribution per share, and that should come out to the amount. You can use your web browser to visit Yahoo's historical pricing page and see the historical distributions. It sounds like this is where you are getting this data? Once the amount is correct, then the reinvested number of shares depends on the pricing for that date. It will be the amount divided by the closing price on that date. Knowing all this you can determine the source of any problem.

On the currency question, since the investment is in GBP, all transactions for this investment must be recorded in GBP. So, any distributions will be in GBP. You could then transfer this to USD by recording a sell of GBP and a buy of USD.